Description
Book SynopsisThis volume explores the interferences of trance mediums and new technical media to add a new perspective to current debates on the “renaissance of the religious“. Situated in the field of media anthropology it follows the question of how spirit possession is transformed by processes of globalization and mass mediation.
Trade Review"Trance Mediums and New Media is a highly significant intervention in the growing literature on religion and media. Unusual in its comparative, interdisciplinary character, the volume deals with a broad range of case-studies - including, amongst others, Sufi, Pentecostal, shamanic and Hindu communities - and drawn from geographical regions as diverse as Mali, Vietnam and Germany. The volume's editors and contributors probe the well-worn polarities of matter and spirit, artifice and nature, which frequently dominate studies of both religion and media. In place of these juxtapositions, the collection instead makes a persuasive argument for the complementary roles of both spiritual mediumship and new media in reconciling the not-so-distinct realms of nature and spirit." -- -Joel Cabrita University of Cambridge "The main theoretical issues - what is becoming of trance and trance mediums in the media saturated societies of today? And in extension of that question: what is becoming of 'the religious' and 'the mediatic'? - are challenging ones, and merit the in-depth exploration that this volume has on offer." -- -Mattijs van de Port University of Amsterdam "This is a highly original and thought-provoking addition to the study of the interrelations between media and religion. Geographically wide-ranging and well-informed both historically and theoretically, the volume explores affinities and synergies between technical mediation and spirit mediumship while also recognizing ruptures and limitations. It succeeds in developing alternatives to styling the encounter of media and mediums as one of modernity and tradition." -- Felicitas Becker University of Cambridge
Table of ContentsI. Media-Techniques of Trance 1) Erhard Schuttpelz (Siegen): Trance Mediums and New Media: The Heritage of a European Term 2) Rosalind C. Morris (New York): On the Subject of Spirit Mediumship in the Age of New Media 3) Ute Holl (Basel): Trance Techniques, Cinema, and Cybernetics 4) Anja Dreschke (Siegen): Possession Play: On Trance Rituals and Impersonation Among the Cologne Tribes II. Mediation and Circulation of Trance Mediums/Media 1) Dorothea Schulz (Cologne): Transmitting Divine Grace: On the Materiality of Charismatic Mediation in Mali 2) Martin Zillinger (Siegen): Absence and the Medialization of the Audio-Visual Unconscious 3) Emilio Spadola (New York): Rites of Reception: Mass-Mediated Trance and Public Order in Morocco 4) Laurel Kendall (New York): Numinous Dress/Iconic Costume: Korean Shamans Dressed for the Gods and for the Camera 5) Getrud Huwelmeier (Berlin): Mediating the Apocalypse: The Disaster of the Titanic in Vietnamese Pentecostal Discourse III. Manifestation, Transformation and Aesthetics of Trance Mediums/Media 1) Claudia Bohme (Mainz): "Look With Your Own Eyes!" Visualization of Spirit Media and their Viewing Techniques in Tanzanian Video Films 2) Heike Behrend (Cologne): Spaces of Refusal: Iconoclastic/Photophobic Spirits and the Technical Medium of Photography 3) Lidia Guzy (Berlin): Medial Transformations: Music, Goddess-Embodiment, and Politics in Western Orissa/India 4) Christopher Pinney (London): Manifestation and Media: The Aesthetics and Politics of Plenitude in Central India
